


the ways you’ve etched yourself into my bones

by ilia



Category: SK8 the Infinity (Anime)
Genre: Cherry's long pink hair and the way Joe (and I) are obsessed with it, Drinking to Cope, M/M, Multi, Pining, The way you mourn for someone who is still alive but irreparably changed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-12
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-16 19:14:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29954625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ilia/pseuds/ilia
Summary: It's been years since Kojiro, Kaoru, and Ainosuke were in love. Now, years later and with Adam long gone, Kojiro still finds himself on Kaoru's doorstep.-"Years ago, Kaoru might have greeted him with a grin. But this now is nothing like before; no longer do they suffer delusions of purity. Kojiro stands in the cold, shirtless and with desperation written into every bulky line of him, and Kaoru’s loathing is clear as his door slides open. Sometimes, Kojiro is dismissed with a grating tone. AnI can’t deal with you right now.Aget out of my sight.Other times, Kaoru forgoes the pleasantries. His sharp teeth sink into Kojiro’s bottom lip before Kojiro's even crossed the threshold and he takes Kojiro as he pleases, because that’s what Kaoru does, because that’s likely the only way a pious fuck like Kaoru knows how to want anymore. And the following day, Kojiro is left with deep, purple bruises, marks from the legendary Cherry."
Relationships: Nanjo Kojiro | Joe/Sakurayashiki Kaoru | Cherry Blossom, Nanjo Kojiro | Joe/Sakurayashiki Kaoru | Cherry Blossom/Shindo Ainosuke | Adam
Comments: 5
Kudos: 42





	the ways you’ve etched yourself into my bones

**Author's Note:**

> I'm taken by the dynamic between Adam, Joe, and Cherry, and wanted to do a little exploratory thing to develop it.
> 
> Thanks for reading!

They’d been happy once. 

Kojiro’s memory might be shit, but he remembers that much. He remembers the acid joys of youth as though it were only yesterday they skated like they might just grow wings from their sharp shouldlerblades, took to the night like predators, fed off of her obscurity. Of youth Kojiro doesn’t remember much, but he does remember those vivid nights. Nights when they were endless.

Sometimes Kojiro wonders if nostalgia’s carried on certain winds. Because he doesn’t feel this irritating, tethering pull all the time. But the days have been cooling recently, Okinawa’s breezes carrying the rattling hollow of autumn, and he’s been thinking too much about times long lost.

Irritating. There are days where he awakens tasting those same familiar winds and knows exactly how the week will go, filled with a hellish, undulating longing. And so he cooks, more ferociously than usual, because it’s only in the fumes of divine smells and spitting oils that he remembers who he is. Or he takes out an old, battered board and hits the back alleys, jumping dangerous tricks and gathering speed until the only thing he can feel is the way the pavement makes his knees ache; until the memories scrabble in his wake.

And when all else fails, Kojiro leans in.

The table at his front is a fine grain wood; low, in the old fashioned style that has his knees cramping and tight and the entrepreneur in him thanking the gods have gone out of style in most restaurants for the sake of his patrons alone. It swims in front of him, the attractive sake cups upon its surface duplicating in twos and fours. And fuck, he’s had too much again, he always has too much.

“You’re terrible at holding it,” says a voice. And at the table’s other end, Kaoru. With his arms folded across his chest and that pretty face pulled in a scowl. Sharp eyes peer through his glasses towards Kojiro, and his judgment pisses Kojiro off, crawls beneath his flesh. He wants to reach out and strike away that judgmental look with one big, flat hand.

He holds up the cup as though it's swill. “Maybe if you served something of quality.”

“This _is_ quality,” Kaoru snarls, eyes flashing. Long fingers gesture towards the bottle. “It’s a Ginjo.”

“As long as it gets me drunk, I don’t care what its name is.”

“If you’re drinking for inebriation, buy a cheap vodka. This is meant to be enjoyed.”

“Joke’s on you, then. I’m enjoying it plenty.” Kojiro flashes a smile he does not feel.

Kaoru glares daggers through the thick panes of his glasses. Atop the table, his knuckles are an icy white. He mutters something—something that sounds like _wasted_ and _obnoxious_. Kojiro doesn’t bother to listen further.

It happens only on the worst days, when Kojiro awakens with that longing bone-deep and aching and nothing else can drag his thoughts from it, when he skates himself weary and cooks until he’s nursing a fresh array of burns down his arms and still he cannot escape the way he aches for the past, that he needs Kaoru. When he can aboliish his pride long enough to arrive, unannounced and unexpected, on Kaoru's doorstep.

Years ago, Kaoru might have greeted him with a grin. But this now is nothing like before; no longer do they suffer delusions of purity. Kojiro stands in the cold, shirtless and with desperation written into every bulky line of him, and Kaoru’s loathing is clear as his door slides open. Sometimes, Kojiro is dismissed with a grating tone. An _I can’t deal with you right now_. A _get out of my sight_. Other times, Kaoru forgoes the pleasantries. His sharp teeth sink into Kojiro’s bottom lip before Kojiro's even crossed the threshold and takes him as he pleases, because that’s what Kaoru does, because that’s likely the only way a pious _fuck_ like Kaoru knows how to want anymore. And the following day, Kojiro is left with deep, purple bruises, marks from the legendary Cherry.

On other nights, they drink.

Kojiro chances another swig of the sake, and if he were less drunk, less in his head, his chef's instincts might note it to be a decent one—that it has subtle untertones of ginger and spice and would clean a palate well after a heavier meal, that he might befit from asking Kaoru where he got it, how Kojiro might get his hands on some of it himself. But tonight he isn’t interested in assessing the worth of sake, isn’t wanting to taste at all. He wants to be drunk and to forget the misery that’s settled heavily at the top of his spine for days. 

And he wants Kaoru.

He glances towards Kaoru now, Kaoru with his spilling pink hair that winds impossible designs onto the wooden floor where he sits and his after-hours kimono loose from the evening’s work. In Kaoru’s home, the windows are always thrown wide, and this late at night the light from the moon filters in and glances across his cheeks, settles a stripe down his mouth. Heat flares up Kojiro’s neck, and he downs the remainder of his drink.

There might have been a day Kojiro would have given in on restraint then and there; taken Kaoru in his arms and whispered pretty things to the secret little space just behind his ear; a time when, if Kojiro pressed Kaoru back into his bedclothes and fucked him until the pretty man was pleading and begging and _wanting_ it might have actually meant something important. But those times have long since passed.

Because they never had to do it alone. _He_ was right there beside them. Guiding Kojiro’s lips to Kaoru’s stomach with long fingers. That wicked, full mouth telling him _good_ and _more_ and _oh, if you could only see yourselves, if you could see how pretty you are all laid out for me like that_. Languid kisses between three boys exchanged in the muggy heat of the Okinawa summertime against asphalt walls stinking of spray paint and cigarette ash. Flesh on flesh. Sweat trailing down necks, sinking into cloth.

But those times have long gone. Ainosuke has long since gone. And together, Kojiro and Kaoru battle the open wound of loss. The harrowing sensation of incompletion.

Kojiro wonders what Adam is doing now—if sometimes he lays awake, as Kojiro does, and misses the way the three of them used to twine together so naturally it was as though they were made just for only that. Those thoughts are ugly, grating things. They sear at something inside Kojiro's gut. He grits his teeth and twists his lips and tastes the sake on his tongue.

_I wonder if he sees us as anything beyond hunks of speared meat between him and his goal._

“You’re staring,” comes Kaoru's far-away voice. Kojiro blinks to clear his head from the haze of memories. Kaoru's glance towards him is fillled with as much judgment as Kojiro has ever learned; his long, shapely nails tap an impatient rhythm across the tabletop, and Kojiro wants them deep in his back.

“Maybe I’m just appreciating a beautiful thing.”

“Damned gorilla.” Kaoru sniffs. “You wouldn’t know beauty if it came up behind you and hit you around the head with a kettle.”

“Hit me ‘round the head and we’ll see how I recognize you.”

There was a time when Kojiro’s silly little compliments used to color Kaoru’s cheeks the same hue as his hair, when just that would be enough to have him crawling into Kojiro’s lap. _Say it again. Say that you love me. Swear you won't stop_. But all Kojiro earns himself now is a look of repulsion. It’s damn near all he’s gotten for years.

Since Ainosuke left, they haven’t been able to stitch themselves back together. Since Ainosuke left, they’ve been nothing at all.

Normally, it would grate on him. He’d take Kaoru’s loathing and tuck it into the deepest recesses of him and work in the gym until he can hardly stand, entice a pretty woman to his bed and fuck her until he feels worthy and wanted again. But tonight, Kojiro’s too drunk to feel much of anything at all but for the upset that seethes in him. Bubbling and bursting now.

 _You know what they say about big men,_ Ainosuke would say, and tug at Kojiro's hair. _Big temper._

“You’re drinking less than normal,” Kojiro notes to Kaoru, nonchalant as he might be in this state. “Healthy levels, I mean. Trying to get a _beef_ of your own, then?”

"Quiet." Kaoru’s scowl pulls his face. 

“He won’t listen,” Kojiro continues. And his fingers twitch where they’re resting, impolitely, on the table. “You’ve tried for so long now, and for what? He’d have to actually notice you first."

“ _Quiet_ ,” Kaoru snaps, louder this time.

“Hey, man. Just telling the truth.” Kojiro raises his palms into the air. _Not the one who broke your heart. Not the one who left us out in the cold with no clue in hell how to do this thing on our own._ “Now Ainosuke is all high and mighty, he has no time for anything insignificant in his life. Like us.”

There’s the sound of ceramic shattering, and shards of Kaoru’s cup fly across the table. They graze Kojiro’s arms as they pass on their way to the floor. Kaoru leans over the middle with both hands flat on the sake-sticky wood. His face contorts with rage. The gossamer ends of his long pink hair drags in the grime.

“Don’t _say_ that,” Kaoru hisses. The look in his eyes is the same as that first day Ainosuke didn’t arrive. Broken, worthless. A creature abandoned on a roadside slick with rain. The way they’d awaited him for hours, worry clawing at their stomachs, how each second further had torn their stitching irreparably. “Don’t you dare imply—he’s back, he _has_ to talk to me. He has to acknowledge me again. I’ll _make_ him if I have to.”

“And you say that you're the realist between us.” Kojiro allows a laugh roll from his tongue, ugly and mirthless. “He’s moved on, four-eyes. Left childhood foolishness far behind in his wake. To him, we’re beneath scum. A regret, probably.”

Mania, etched into the beautiful lines of Kaoru’s face. “ _Fuck_ you.”

Kojiro shakes back his cloud of hair and bats his lashes. “Whenever you’re ready, pretty boy. Been waiting all evening.”

“Presumptuous ass.”

“Whore.”

Kaoru’s hand snaps towards to Kojiro’s cheek. Kojiro catches his wrist before it can make contact.

They stare at one another, noses mere inches apart. Kojiro’s breaths fog the inside of Kaoru’s glasses.

There’s a moment in which that rage still burns in Kaoru’s eyes—and in Kojiro’s gut churns guilty satisfaction. He’s held no delusions of sanctimony, after alll; he’s taken without permission, stolen and cheated and traced his lighter across the surface of precious things and watched them burn. He’s thrown out all of Ainosuke's things, and Kaoru’s too, and scrubbed his apartment with bleach until his eyes stung and lungs ached and hoped that might absolve him of the way he still remembers. He’s used Ainosuke's names—both of them, to tear Kaoru further apart at the seams. So that he might reach for Kojiro one more night.

But there’s no substance that can wash his slate clean of nights shared between them three. Of the promises they’d whispered into each other’s hair. The way their fingers dragged along their bodies. The godly pleasures they chased. When they were young, they thought they might fly. Now their hollow little bones are filled with cement grief.

Kojiro's grip slackens, and Kaoru wrenches away his wrist.

He is every part a divinity defeated, Kojiro thinks. Kaoru’s face is obscured by a heavy curtain of pink hair as he takes his retreat. Bare feet glide over wooden boards as he leaves the table, the shattered china, in his wake. Beside the sake, his glasses gleam abaondoned upon the surface. There's a steeple to his shoulders, like he's been hollowed out from within.

Long, white fingers reach for the knob to the bedroom beyond, and his kimono falls and pools at his ankles. His back is an ivory expanse pock-marked with scarring that Kojiro has long since memorized. His legs stretch endlessly.

“Well?” Kaoru asks. He glances over his shoulder. Yellow eyes find Kojiro at the room’s end still. “You coming?”

On the gods, if only Kojiro knew how to refuse.

They no longer come together delicately. No, they forewent tenderness when together they nursed shards of a broken relationship that could not seem to fit together without their third; when in the bedroom, they had to be loud, had to be big, to compensate for the aching absense of their beloved Ainosuke. With their teeth and nails, they tear into the other. As though, somehow, the hurt might make it better.

And why not? They’ve tried everything else.

It’s no different this night. Kojiro crosses the threshold to the bedroom, and Kaoru slams into him. And were he not so accustomed to catching this broken thing in the times he’s fallen before, he might be bowled over. But as always, Kojiro’s big, sure hands take Kaoru’s little waist. They kiss with teeth and tongue, roughly enough to decimate.

And still, it’s never enough. Kojiro yearns for a breath in his ear. That subtle command of Ainosuke's that will no longer come. _Take his cock in your hand_.

Kojiro does it anyway, strokes Kaoru until he is hard, revels in each gentle little gasp from those plump, bitten lips. They walk forwards fastened together. They collapse into Kaoru’s bed.

They’ve at least done this enough times that Kojiro is used to it by now. And though their passions have crested and fallen with the tides, there is always a day where the winds carry nostalgia across Kojiro’s stoop and he is infected once more. Kojiro always comes back.

And sooner or later, Kaoru always allows him in.

“Kojiro,” Kaoru whines, and the sound of his name across that wicked tongue sears up Kojiro’s spine. One lithe leg lifts. “Come on, fast. Don’t make me wait.”

Kaoru is a man with an empire of his own on his narrow shoulders, prim and proper and traditional to the last breath. It’s when he’s disheveled and wanton like this, hair fanned out like a field of crysanthemums beneath him and legs spread, that Kojiro sees the boy from high school instead, the one for whom he fell like a jet tumbling to earth. The boy with the face full of metal and shoulders crippling from the weight of his mother’s expectations, who skated so that he too might chance escape no matter how brief.

Kojiro’s thumb traces the pock-marks along Kaoru’s bottom lip. Kaoru’s teeth sink deep into the bone.

“Now,” Kaoru spits. “Before I lose my nerve.”

They come together as though they’re in a hurry, and perhaps in a way they are. In any minute, Kaoru might decide he’s had enough, press Kojiro away, toss him out unclothed and unshod into the chilly streets beyond. Kojiro fucks him like they’re running out of time. He buries himself in his Kaoru, as long as Kaoru will allow him.

The room is quiet but for huffs of air from between their lips. Outside, the sky has blackened in full. It’s the sort of endless, private night they used to crave—fewer bugs when a chill permeates the air. Warm enough to merely need to fold into one another to stay warm. Hands beneath t-shirts. Mouths wandering and hungry. Promises sworn into bloodied knees and bruised knuckles. Promises that would be broken, every last one.

Kojiro looks at Kaoru beneath him, eyes blackened and mouth gaping. Kaoru, his first. Kaoru, who’s woven himself so deeply into Kojiro’s past it’s as though they’ve become one. Longing crashes against the insides of his ribs.

_Just you would have been enough for me._

He thrusts his girth into Kaoru until Kaoru screams. Nails claw at Kojiro’s back and arms. Tomorrow, the linen of his chef’s coat will rub it raw, and every time he’ll think of _Cherry_.

_It’s just me who isn’t enough for you._

They come in fingers knotted in one another’s hair until their scalps ache, in hungry teeth fastened to flesh and sweat rolling down their necks. After, they tumble to the mattress a mess of limbs and bedclothes, the obi of Kaoru’s kimono tangled about them both, serpentine. Sweat falls from Kojiro’s forehead to Kaoru’s pillow. It dots the clean, white bedclothes and fades away.

He looks into Kaoru's face to find it reverent. In that gentle look, Kojiro rediscovers his hope.

He reaches for Kaoru’s face. Kaoru pulls away.

“Off.” His voice drags and delays from overuse. “I’m not interested in receiving your pity.”

“I wasn’t gonna give you pity.”

A dirisive sniff. “I need _that_ even less.”

And the moment ruptures as light spills from the line of horizon, illuminating the strict bamboo walls of Kaoru's bedroom and spelling end to the freedoms of night.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on [Twitter!](https://www.twitter.com/iliawrites)


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